Get it via the iTunes App store now or go to the Apple App preview page

1.0 RELEASE VERSION 1.0 – Description and screen shot

Social Media Counts is an amazing and hypnotic real time display of eighty four user, content and business metrics across social media, games, mobile and traditional or heritage media. The data is based on actual reported numbers which are listed in the embedded info panel and this rolling ‘count-up counter’ is a projection forward in time based on these real numbers. With over 40 million impressions already of the embeddable flash version across the web this counter gives real insight into the tsunami of content, proliferation of devices and the money being made from a range of entertainment and services.

Features

include the ability to switch in real time between the social. mobile, games and heritage lists as well as step forward in increments of day, week, month and a fixed view of a year ahead. You can also reset the counter at any point using the ‘begin’ button. An info screen contains a list of most of the data sources used in the counter and a web link takes you to a web page with these listed and links to the sources pages also.

Please Note: The application is intentionally not highly interactive as it is meant to be used as a display in portrait mode only, making it readable at presentations and demonstrations to others in small meeting environments as it allows easy visibility of the amazingly large growing numbers.

The app will be updated regularly – approx once a month with updated statistics where available and suggestions are always welcomed for new, remarkable figures (make sure you have a reliable per day, month or year figure though!)

For reference here are the current list of real time counter metrics being displayed:

Social Media Tab

new blog posts, members added on Facebook, US dollars spent on virtual goods globally, tweets sent on Twitter, videos watched on YouTube, iPhone apps downloaded, US dollars spent on Facebook gifts, hours uploaded onto YouTube, new Twitter accounts, text messages inside Second Life, US dollars made from global messaging & data, iPads sold, new members on LinkedIn, pieces of music bought on iTunes, searches made on Google, emails sent globally, US dollars made in ad revenue on Facebook, sms’s sent worldwide, photos uploaded to Facebook, images uploaded to Flickr, new internet users globally

Mobile Media Tab

new mobile phones shipped, US dollars generated from mobile games, sms’ sent worldwide, new phones GPS enabled, US dollars made by global mobile data, WiFi and 3G iPads sold globally, iPhones sold, GBs sent across all mobile devices, hours of mobile video watched in USA, US dollars made from all mobile services globally, new users of mobile social networks, US dollars spent on mobile advertising worldwide, new mobile subscribers globally, new portable pcs / laptops shipped, mms messages in the US, iPhones unlocked, US dollars made from mobile music, people using location mobile services logged onto the web using mobile, made from mobile video, new mobile 3G subscribers globally

Games
join a ‘social’ game from Zynga, US dollars made from MMOG players China, quests completed by WoW players, US dollars revenue from games sold in US, user2user tranactions Second Life, transactions in Eve Online, game units sold worldwide, US dollars spent on virtual goods globally, new global MMORPG subscribers, US dollars generated from Virtual World ads, logged into Fantasy Westward Journey, virtual goods created in Second Life, US dollars invested in Virtual World companies, new US kids (3-11) subscribing to VWs, messages between Second Life users, players transactions in Eve Online, US dollars net revenue made World of Warcraft, portable game units sold, user hours by Chinese online gamers, messages posted on Gaia forums, user hours by Second Life users

Heritage Media
US dollars made at the US box office, US dollars lost to US economy due to movie piracy, read a newspaper in the US, Dollars TV revenue generated globally, single music tracks downloaded, attend a US orchestral concert, US dollars made from global print ads, US dollars total spend making Australian films, US dollars total spend on making UK films, US dollars wages for jobs in US movie industry, US dollarshardcover books sold worldwide, kindle books sold just by Amazon, people in US tuning into radio, US dollars made from music concerts worldwide, US dollars made from DVD & Blu-ray in US, US dollars lost by pirated music & movies Spain, US dollars made from all music worldwide, hours of TV watched by all UK viewers, movie tickets sold US EU China Japan,US dollars spent on new TV sets in the US, printed press page views

“Games Women Play” Sep 08  from the Edge

• Online casual games bring in 150 million women every month– roughly half the population of the United States.
• Nearly two-thirds of women casual players online are over 35.
• Women play casual games 5 to 10 hours per day – significantly greater than the 7.4 hours per week by a survey by the Casual Gaming Association.
• Competition, rather than simple relaxation or escapism, motivates them to play.
• Female players who are 18 and older represent one third of the game-playing population while male players who are 17 or younger represent only 18 percent of casual gamers
• Playing casual games is often the first thing women do after waking. They check their ranking and play for on average of 2 ½ hours every morning.
• Women engage in trivia games with the family members but play action games alone.
• Most women players are married or in a relationship and have children.

Online Gaming Popularity Grows Among Youngest and Oldest Female Segments in the U.S. ComScore report.

• Significant user growth among teenage girls between the ages of 12 and 17 and women between the ages of 55 and 64.
• Growth in the 12 – 17 age range was 55% compared to the total female online gaming audience rate of 27%
• The over-55 age range grew 43%.

BBC 23 December 2008 “Battle of the Sexes”

• It found that the most hard-core players are female, that gamers are healthier than average, and that game playing is an increasingly social activity.
• Despite gaming being seen as a male activity, female players now make up about 40% of the gaming population.
• The study (detailed link here from Wiley interscience) looked at gender differences in more than 2,400 gamers playing EverQuest II.

Industry Facts from Entertainment Software Association ESA

• The average game player is 35 years old and has been playing games for 13 years.
• The average age of the most frequent game purchaser is 40 years old.
• Forty percent of all game players are women. In fact, women over the age of 18 represent a significantly greater portion of the game-playing population (33 percent) than boys age 17 or younger (18 percent).
• In 2008, 26 percent of Americans over the age of 50 played video games, an increase from nine percent in 1999
• Sixty-three percent of parents believe games are a positive part of their children’s lives.

Women Embrace Casual Games from RedHerring “Casual Gamers Anything But”

• Spend as much as 20 hours each week playing their favorite games.
• More than 70 percent said they play at night, and 58 percent have no children living at home.
• Results from the Harris research reveal that 67 percent of the women over 40 who play games do so at least four times per week. Nearly half play every day.
• Some 60 percent say they would rather play a casual game than talk on the phone or do projects around the home, while nearly 50 percent said they would rather play a casual game than go to a movie.

PDF report by Pew Internet. “Adults and Video Games”

• More than half – 53% – of all American adults play video games of some kind
• Independent of all other factors, younger adults are still more likely to play games.
• Among older adults 65+ who play video games, nearly a third play games everyday, a significantly larger percentage than all younger players, of whom about 20% play everyday.
• Gaming consoles are the most popular for young adults: 75% of 18-29 year old gamers play on consoles, compared with 68% who use computers
• Computers are the most popular among the total adult gaming population, with 73% of adult gamers using computers to play games, compared with 53% console users, 35% who using cell phones, and 25% using portable gaming devices.

BBC 17 Sep 2008 “Online gamers are not unhealthy“

• The “couch potato” image of computer gamers is unfounded, with many in better than average shape, claim US researchers.
• More than 7,000 players of the online game EverQuest II were quizzed about their health by scientists.
• They found gamers’ body mass index (BMI) tended to be lower than the US average – with many taking “proper” exercise more than once a week.

Driving Force in Video Gaming: Women and Baby Boomers. Reported on PC World Aug 2008.  IBISWorld claims that:

• 38 percent of US gamers are women
• The average player is 35 years old
• 24 percent are over 50.
• The percentage of female video gamers climbed from 33 to 38 percent in five years bolstered in part by Nintendo’s Wii, but also “interactive group games” such as Singstar, Rock Band, and Lips, as well as The Sims, The Movies, Nintendogs and NeoPets.

Demographics of the top 3 games on Facebook – from Bret on Social Games

• Scramble which is the only game among the top three developers dominated by women(63%).
• The age of Zynga players is spread more evenly among the three age segments, but with ~50% in the 22-25 age bracket.
• Blake Commagere’s Monsters games also have ~50% of their users in the 22-25 age bracket.
• They also have a fairly even male-female ratio.

Second Life demographics and usage – reported by Lost in Bananaverse

• 83.79% of the population is 25 years and older, and the older users spend far more time in Second Life than younger users
• Females spent nearly twice as long online in Second Life as males. Females make up 45.5% of the Second Life population.
• Total user hours for April totaled 29,069,684 hours
• Those 45 and older continuing to be the heaviest users on average.
  • 45 and older: 70.17 hours per user per month
  • 35-44: 66.06 hours per user per user per month
  • 25-34: 55.55 hours per user per user per month
  • 18-24: 37.84 hours per user per user per month
  • Teen grid: 24.67 hours per user per user per month

The demographics of World of Warcraft (useful but old 2005 data from Nick Yee)

• The average age of the WoW player is 28.3
• 84% of players are male
• 16% are female. Female players are significantly older (32.5) than male players (28.0)
• On average, they spend 22.7 hours per week playing WoW.
• There are no gender differences in hours played per week.

ESSENTIAL FACTS ABOUT THE COMPUTER AND VIDEO GAME INDUSTRY 2008 SALES, DEMOGRAPHIC AND USAGE DATA (full report from ESA at Scribd)

• 13 is the average number of years adult gamers have been playing computer or video games. Among most frequent gamers, adult males average 15 years for game playing, females for 12 years.
• 59% of gamers play games with other gamers in person. This is a rise from 56% in 2007 and from 51% in 2006.
• The average age of the most frequent game purchaser is: 40
• 56% of online game players are male 44% are female.
• What is the One Type of Online Game Played Most Often?
  • 12% Other
  • 47% Puzzle/Board/Game Show/Trivia/Card
  • 16% Action/Sports/ Strategy/Role-Play
  • 14% Downloadable Games Such as Bejeweled and Diner Dash
  • 11% Persistent Multi-Player Universe

Women are hardcore gamers from bNet in 2006

• Electronic Arts’ casual game site Pogo.com draws 11 million unique users per month. Fifty-five percent of those are women.
• On the subscription side, 75 percent of the more than 1 million subscribers are women over the age of 35.

Study: Women Gamers Outnumber Men in 25-34 Age Group – from GameDaily 2006

• Consumer Electronics Association study found that 65 percent of women in the 25-34 age bracket play video games, while only 35 percent of men in that group said that they play video games. The key factor involved with these findings is the increasing popularity of casual games, especially among women. (These casual titles are typically found on web portals like Yahoo!, AOL Games, PopCap Games, EA’s Pogo.com and elsewhere.)
• Women were found to be slightly less likely than men in the 25-34 bracket to play traditional console games on systems like PlayStation  or Xbox.

Old (2000) but interesting item on ‘gender bending’ in games from womengamers.com

• 6% of subjects play female characters for 25% or less of their gaming time
• 24% play females for 26-50% of their gaming time
• 15% play females for 51-75% of their gaming time
• 42% play females for 76-100% of their gaming time
• 12% did not answer this question

The video below is quick & cheerful, one-take, ‘Space Navigator’ Machinima and Music by Gary and the whole work was very similar in style and form to Thursday’s Fictions in Second Life, a MUVEDesigned project two years ago. Full credits for the Macbeth project below.

Macbeth in Second Life Credits
Guide & credits here

SLURL – http://slurl.com/secondlife/Macbeth/44/54/54

A collaboration by Angela Thomas, Kate Richards and Kerreen Ely-Harper, from an original idea by Kerreen Ely-Harper.
Producer: Kate RIchards (Nini Dubrovna)
Director: Kereen Ely-Harper (Dorothy Porta)
Virtual World Content Designer: Angela Thomas (Anya Ixchel)
SL Design Consultant: Adam Nash (Adam Ramona)

This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body. Initial stages of this project were mentored and developed through the Laboratory for Advanced Media Production (LAMP) at Australian Film TV and Radio School (AFTRS). This project has been funded and built by the New Media Consortium

NMC Team:
Larry Johnson (Larry Pixel)
Alan Levine (CDB Barkley)
Rachel Smith (Ninmah Ash)
NMC Second Life Building Team:
Chris Holden (CJ Carnot)
Beth Satchjen (Stella Costello)

Voiceover Actors:
Maggie Blinco
Boris Brkic
Christopher Morris
Ophelia Of The Spirits
Alice Parkinson
Evelyn Parsonage
Recorded at Megaphone Studios
Engineer: Shane Fahey

Additional thanks to:
Larry Johnson
Therese Fingelton
Gary Hayes
Jeff Wegener
Ian Waddely
Nick Noakes

Filmed and edited by Gary Hayes of MUVEDesign. Note: This film does not demonstrate the many interactive elements, social intentions or literary integration. Please visit the island to see those first ‘virtual’ hand. A medium resolution (98MB MP4) download is available here

As well as the increase in venture capital investment across all virtual worlds, the time spent in them, measured in user hours, is growing too. While this is partly due to existing users spending longer it is often the about the typical new user who after the initial log-in hurdles becomes highly engaged for 3-18 months or longer with a particular personally resonant virtual world service. Virtual worlds that offer something beyond mall-like activities (PS3Home springs to mind) or just a glorified chat channel (there are quite a few in this category) will obviously increase engagement. The personalization factor, to make the virtual space YourSpace either by customising other community members work or by creating it from scratch yourself, naturally increases your personal investment. Second Life has always been about Your World and one of the major driving factors is aspirational lifestyle and peer appraisal.

We partly escape, we are often out to impress, we love the control but most importantly we like to co-create and communicate with those we like on our terms and in areas we make.

Linden Lab who run Second Life have just published figures looking at 2008 and as in several presentations I have been giving around the world, it shows that SL and other worlds are far more ‘sticky’ than traditional 2D social networks such as Facebook and MySpace. From the Linden Lab (second life creators) Blog:

Second Life Residents logged nearly 400 million hours in 2008, growing 61% over 2007
Thursday, January 15th, 2009 at 12:33 PM by: Zee Linden

Linden Lab is pleased to announce results for Q4 and 2008.  User hours increased by 61% over 2007, highlighting the tremendous growth rate in user engagement that Second Life maintained throughout 2008.  User hours increased steadily each quarter, culminating in a record-setting 112 million user hours in Q4.  In addition:

• Peak concurrent users were up 31% over 2007
• Land owned by Residents increased 82% over 2007
• Exchange Volume increased 33% over 2007
• User-to-user transactions in Q4 increased 54% over Q4 of 2007.

Financially 2008 was an outstanding year for the company from a profitability and cash flow perspective. We are in a strong position to weather the economic downturn while continuing to invest in the Second Life platform.

Looking at Q4 in more detail:

Q4 user hours grew 47% from the same quarter last year. In Q4, Residents spent 112 million hours in Second Life which was an increase of 9% from Q3. Peak concurrent users of 76,000 grew 6.7% over Q3 and approximately 30% over Q4 of last year.

Social Media and Web 2.0 is a lot about providing the tools and therefore the means for everyone to create content, that they believe others may want to see. I have personally created a lot of corporate, professional entertainment and music films over the years using high end equipment but now, like many millions around the world, find it a fun and satisfying process to be able to create films and stories in virtual worlds, aka machinima. (Quite a few are over on my personal virtual blog justvirtual)

There are literally millions of machinimas emanating from the likes of World of Warcraft, Sims, Movies, Halo, Second Life, Half Life and many more. Most are done for the love vs the money and some make it onto the big screen. For the creators it is about expressing ‘their’ world and experiences to each other but of course there is something else as important here.

Laurel Papworth talked recently about a machinima I did in Twinity and the ‘free advertising’ it offers for the brand or platform. For me it is also about creating an environment where simple tools encourage large numbers of people to come together remotely and do real-time, collaborative content creation for extended periods. It makes the world very, very sticky when they have shared creative goals and purpose – not just pre-constructed game play. Some may say game quests are social too and I believe when the players get ‘creative’ with the mechanic and ‘bend the rule’ together it certainly is.

Comfortably Fun

Using game or social virtual worlds to entertain each other in this deeply immersive way, leads us to imagine what the potential will be when bandwidth and graphic realism are no longer limitations. Perhaps a portent of the future here is a machinima I did of a forty three minute performance of Pink Floyd’s The Wall, in a social world, Second Life. It was captured last week and it is useful to remind us all what is going on here. There are around 70 people logged in together in real time from around the world, most audience a few performers. About 8 are ‘animating’ on stage or controlling lights, effects or triggering scripted animations and I am recording the whole thing at the same time. This is digital puppeteering. I captured elements of the performance three times and put together this compilation edit. More after the embed…

So this all started with an invite from a self motivated group, led by Debbie Trilling, who for the love of what they do, created an inworld, cross-reality, musical tribute. CARPs (Cybernetic Art Research Project) inventive and emotionally driven version of Pink Floyd’s 1980′s album was a truly international affair and many hours were spent developing and performing a Virtual Show to this music that reaches a new audience every few years.The reason the music reaches new audiences is because of its use in ‘community created content’ just like this, a far more poignent way to share digital content. More than 2000 avatars have experienced this particular concert inworld generating 10 000s of impressions across blogs and media sites. That is the key point – don’t dismiss game or virtual worlds as being irrelevant because of perceived low numbers – these are active and proficient online users who see the 2D web as a ‘simple’ publishing tool and become prolific creators of content and by implication major influencers.

Professional marketeers need to be aware of the power of machinima (consumer films in worlds they are very loyal too) and how by allowing the use of often locked down content is probably the best way to introduce ‘old’ content to new audiences. As an example, while I was putting together this ‘mash-up’ compilation I tried a recording of the reunion performance of the Comfortably Numb at Live 8 a few years ago and was entranced by the synergy of visual and song. Hope you do too. BTW a medium quality (90MB MP4) download of the YouTube above is available here. Worth playing full screen with the volume up and the lights down

To further consider how effective game world movies are. I created again out of a moment of relaxation a ‘flycam’ film around some of my ‘builds’ in Second Life. I like others were entranced by the new feature in the engine, Windlight. This rendered more naturalistic reflections and skyscapes for example. The machinima was a self expressive piece, some improvised guitar and piano and flowing movement, not really an typical ‘traffic’ generating video.

Ticking along at a few hundred views over a month on YouTube then Linden Lab decided to feature it on their machinima page. For a week or so it was getting between two to four thousands views per day. Over the past four months or so it has been viewed over 30 000 times, not bad for an ‘art’ video? But outside the numbers what is the dynamic at play here? Well it is really simple. If you own any space where people frequent, make it really, really easy for them to share their experiences. You scratch their back and they will yours. Give them the tools to make it easy to create professional looking content. Let them do the viral marketing for you. Even though the community realise they are doing you a ‘big’ favour, the joy they get from sharing is part of their own virtuous circle.

A few months ago I blogged over in personalizemedia about the new kid on the intranet block, those ‘layered’ social virtual worlds. Quite simply they are communities of pseudo 3D avatars layered over the 2D web (browsers). I noted that these services are a transition to a ‘live’ collaborative web 3.0 world as this is more of a “let them dip their toes in” before committing to a higher bandwidth, more fully rendered 3D world such as many of those on my sticky video of the 08 metaverse.

I certainly think is the best approach for large numbers who wouldn’t be seen dead or alive in something like Second Life. This is another quick whistle stop tour of a quickly evolving player, Rocketon and also a recent Aussie company who have an alternative approach – ‘live action’ video layered over the 2D web CLIVEvideo.com. (Incidentally if everything is working you should have had a person talking to you in the middle of this post – if not it may be many months later and things have broken OR some other technical reason I cannot ponder at the moment – IE!). Even though I start by talking about Rocketon and it’s implications, having the privilege of playing with the demo of CLIVEvideo for a while I realised many points are relevant to both – bar the ‘big’ nay huge fact that Rocketon is social (shared, real time and partly pulled) and CLIVE is pre-rendered, pushed and fixed (although they tell me they are working on being a bit more web 2.0).

I have been beta’ing and playing with Rocketon for the past few weeks trying to see how it fitted in with my normal zillion web 2.0/3.0 application lifestyle and finding out where the real attraction is for large numbers to adopt this hybrid paradigm. Firstly it I noticed that with Rocketon in minimize mode, every web page I visited it seemed to be doing something in the background, watching? Spying? Regardless every hour or so it gave me a present – some pixel jewelry, a funny avatar – I have a massive collection of stuff now – what to do with it all and how does an emerald relate to me browsing a ‘map of sydney site’? I have still to work out what is going on with general browsing but two killer apps are evident with Rocketon after a few hours tinkering. 1 – Making existing branded websites fun/sticky and 2 – Making web surfing more social, gamelike and challenging.

The first image you can see above is me and SilkCharm being silly so and so’s dropping Burger King pixel toys on MacDonalds sites (only we can see it of course), but with a larger group like the top image, it starts to have significance…if only in the ‘power’ to do so and the fact that pictures/videos are taken and put on blog posts/flickr/YouTube (ah the old rippling impressions). I also made a quick film of a few of us invading the SMH webpage, partly Laurel and myself showing how ‘communities’ can and will make ‘statements’ – much the same as we do in group based social situations in the real world. The potential for positive product placement, interactive toys, loyalty benefits and so on will not go unnoticed by readers of this post!

Click here to view the embedded video.

But the more interesting element of Rocketon for me is where the community are given the tools to create quests, puzzles or games for each other. To demonstrate the potential of CCG (community created games) the Rocketon team set up a simple quest with pretty easy clues. The process, you are given a mission, you read clues, travel to websites (with the Rocketon layer activated) come back to a base and so on.

The thing I really like about this simple example is that you can embed pixel ‘treasure’ or goods on websites, without any recourse to the website owner of course. (I am sure Rocketon are thinking hard about the legal ramifications of hundreds of RTons heading off to litigeous sites to find inappropriate items and then posting the experience!). Anyways you can see in these two images I have been given a secret envelope and sent to ebay to collect a parcel to post and then await further instructions. Suddenly a couple of web pages turn into a scene from The Thomas Crown Affair.

I have quite a lot more to say about Rocketon and it’s distant cousins such as weblin but time is pressing and lots more to get on with. For the moment though all I can advise them is to enable tools for the community to develop their own fun or for marketeers to start to offer quite tricky quests for real world prizes – I am sure this is happening, it is the only path to really get the numbers up.

So to CLIVEvideo. I have literally been playing with this for less than an hour today after Scott from Maxy’s grabbed me on twitter! It looks very promising. I have seen many variations of this over the years but the implementation of this particular technology is pretty accessible and is squarely aimed at ad agencies, SMEs and larger companies and those who want to differentiate their website and make it a little more viral. As with the points above about Rocketon the real value of having layered personalities over the webpage is to build bridges between the layers (the avatars or video peops relating to what is below them) – or why be there in the first place. CLIVEvideo.com have some great tools to build ‘key’ed’ (invisible backgrounded people) sequences and to also add in sequence applications (person, flash demo, person, page link, person, product video demo etc) and are focused on sales or corporate messages at the moment.

But imagine a future where the keying is from 4-10 people, a webcam community, who start to act a little like we have been doing with Rocketon. Doesn’t have to be full body necessarily, but why not – webcam pointing at users in front of a green or blue screen in their office/bedroom. Then you really have some potential to make the 2D web much more fun and sticky. The applications for marketing, socialising etc start to kick in when you can (like some video chat applications) render pixel elements over the top of the live video image. Ummmm. *rubs hands*… It will certainly be a lot of effort for some, but having specially designed web pages for ‘Keyers’ (as they shall be known) would also provide Google Lively type integration – key yourself live into this and make the branded movie etc etc: This reminds me a little of the fun video I did at AFTRS recently with SilkCharm and lots of invited real people – keye’d into World of Warcraft – that I shall leave you with!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Finally, finally well still on this topic a new player that makes it even easier to meet and chat based on the web page your on is Live World. It’s product LiveBar is basically a ‘chat’ engine that detects the page your on and connects you to others that are also on that page.

Now we will really see how popular some webpages are

Rather than just referring to the many standard press articles about the growing number of companies or formats that are setting up in Second Life (the media’s favourite MUVE at the moment) I have been ‘living it’ so to speak. My inworld blog JustVirtual provides an inworld perspespective, my avatars POV, of close encounters with the outside world’s ‘brand immigrants’. They are indeed seen that way by many residents, not disimilar to any alien brand entering a real ‘developing’ world. The recent companies include NBC, Philips Design, IBM, Reuters, Endemol and others that suggest that the next generation of entrants are moving in, with a far more robust and serious vision than the first wave who were just pushing product.

I can’t break the 4th wall in my other ‘fictional’ blog, I know strange, so I thought I would comment on two recent events in Second Life in 3rd person. The first is the preliminary days of the Virtual Big Brother and the second is Second Life’s most attended inworld event, the switching on of the Christmas lights in Rockefeller Plaza sponsored by NBC.

Big Brother Begins

With these new entrants we are seeing a move to second gear, a shift in the maturity of the platform. Not technically (it still falls over an awful lot) or from a business model perspective (subs are still in the low 100k’s vs nearly 2 million registrants) but a web 3.0 paradigm shift – using the environment for quite practical and engaging services. I personally use Second Life (and other MUVE’s) for educational and creative purposes so I am probably already ahead of the curve. But onto to show. Big Brother selected its final 15 contestants (pic below) and I covered much of the lead up in this post. Most of the ‘housemates’ are women, I suspect because the producers are mostly male (I wonder how many of the females avatars women have a real world male driving them? We shall see.) I was actually on the last final 60 shortlist, but being able to commit to 8 hours a day online for the whole of December was impossible for me, so I didn’t pursue.

A couple of friends are in there and already it is really interesting to see how the virtual Big Brother is becoming even more compelling than the real one! As well as the traditional backstabbing, personality differences or supportive housemate interactions (remember this is real people talking/communicating with other real people) all involved are are allowed to communicate to and lobby the many hundreds of passing/visiting ‘audience’ members. This ‘conversation’ is very engaging for those involved, the audience is resontating with the programme, or rather with the ‘experience’ – because this is no longer pre-packaged or controlled reality ‘video’.

For the audience inworld this is belonging to, and being part of the ‘game’. Lillani Lowell (my current vote and friend leading up to this event) gives an view down this particular rabbit hole for those who are not in Second Life (or likely to be) in her insightful updated blog from inside the house (the equivalent of the diary room I suppose – but here we get to see all entries). The odd but also thrilling part of the experience is being able to go and talk to the ‘stars’ of the show, whenever you want. They are there 8 hours a day ready and willing to ‘interact’ with you, albeit just to get you on their side perhaps, secure your vote, still it beats, hands down, an SMS into the void that we get with most so called ‘interactive’ shows. It will be very interesting to see how Endemol adapt to and learn from this process, this is a really exciting experiment as games/tv and online social neworks collide. Will they copy elements from this evolving format out into the rather stale ‘real world’ version? Perhaps not, as this is after all a self contained hybrid form which is best left to grow and learn to stand on its own feet.

Above a group of loyal fans of Lillani (a talented scripter and builder) discuss the challenges ahead – in this Big Brother the housemates make things, complex 3D builds for charity. It is easy to appreciate the benefits of a this very diverse audience being used for these kinds of social experiments, game/tv formats. This is web 2.0 meets ‘TV form’ meets ‘games’, all evolving before our very eyes. It is also about game psychology, potentially interesting passive video generation and definitely about immersion for those involved. This particular version of the ‘show’ is thankfully nothing like the ‘real’ big brother, but it needs only the brand really to garner interest. The exciting thing is, it can and will go a lot further and I suspect there will be many other TV ‘formats’ and channels licking their lips. This is a really cheap way to pilot and user test web/tv/game shows after all. The ironic thing is though that this will likely gradually become the format for the masses over the next few years rather than the return to the traditional linear video route.

A Virtual Christmas

The next event is one that starts to show the way forward as regards ‘merged media entertainment’ as I call it. The NBC virtual christmas was synchronised with the real event in the real New York, there was a virtual camera inworld streaming the virtual event onto the web and there was real TV news reports covering the inworld going’s on plus – a live band playing into the environment. My inworld post ‘Virtual Christmas with NBC’ gives an insight into the experience with far more images, for the 1000+ avatars across 18 or so duplicated sims – second lifes largest inworld event.

So TV, web 1, 2 and 3, virtual world, live concert and outdoor all mixed and mashed together. I found myself checking nearly all my blog categories for this one! Another important part of this event was the sympathetic branding in the environment. It wasn’t in your face, it felt part of the experience particularly as the incredible build of the Rockefeller plaza and tower was copied down to the finest detail. Aimee Weber and Bedazzle Design are now experienced developers who themselves are old residents and have empathy with residents. This is critical to the future of these spaces. Better films are made by filmmakers who love watching film, games by games players, music by musicians who love to listen to a variety of sounds and virtual worlds by those who inhabit them. No brainer really.

Above we can see the branding which didn’t spoil the experience for those waiting for the switch on of the christmas lights. The over representational build, the vane attention to duplicating every detail of the real world is not to my ‘particular’ taste but I can appreciate the ‘craft’ and stupendous effort. I think the real reason we are witnessing these 2nd generation ‘build and brand’ combinations is to draw more audience. The more cloning of familiar real world spaces the more tempted to enter, will be those normally reticent in entering MUVEs, virtual worlds and MMORPGs. I also think the more they see (in posts like this even) familiar brands the more comfortable they will be in taking the leap. The familiar chant of ‘get a life’ generally come from those who dont understand these 3D social networks, so now that sustained business models (millionaire Angshe), bona fide identifiable brands and big TV formats are taking root I am sure they may at least want to understand. Its going to be an interesting Christmas 2006.

Posted by Gary Hayes ©2006

Back to the post which in theory sounds complex. Inside Second Life people get paid for organising events and ARG puppet-masters will and should be part of that mix. We need to go beyond just concerts or dances or bingo – but whole in-world game-play, that has some sophistication and plays on the paradigms inherent in the space. Another rabbit hole of game within a game – but SL is not realy a game but a created society, which makes it ideal for what I describe below in the guide element of this post. So we have a real world in which to potentially do things with far more imagination but more importantly, at lower cost and more efficiently. It takes minutes to build a complex 3D structure and texture map it, hours to construct a building with multiple floors and seconds to travel anywhere. It is in this context and the imaginative aspects of this world that it dawned on me an environment perfect for alternate reality gaming.

I often think of ARG’s as similar in format to after dinner mystery games, a collaborative quest of a truth – but spread over months, and location. This is not to be derogatory about the form as real world narrative immersion can be profound and of course it goes deeper but it helps people get it. Borrowing from the earliest Greek mystery plays, theatre eg: mousetrap, 40s crime films, Hitchcock, 70s US cop TV plays, CSI, Lost, Da Vinci code, GoldRush etc etc “nothing is what it seems”. Form & genre evolved. Another way to describe them is to think of something like the X-files (which blurred reality and fantasy) played out in real spaces and media by the audience. A final stab at describing it – a search for the truth behind potential conspiracy, a quest for answers, a participatory game across many media types where lots of people help each other “get to the bottom of it”! It takes the mystery genre mixes in internet search and corporate culture sprinkles some console-like gameplay and adds a dash of real life constructs. The thing that seperates it from being a web quest is the physical element IMHO. So that is my version of ARG. There iare many and various definitions at wikipedia. But constructing any interactive service that requires a complex mix of story, multi paths and built, multiple, pre-rendered elements is hard work. MMORPGs, console games and web quests alike require a great deal of production planning and creation. It should be easy to recruit many folk inside SL to work together in creating ARGs (see below) that is part of the collaborative magic of the place. Making up a cross media game distributed across many platforms is a task not for the faint hearted. We have done a few very rough mini attempts as team building exercises at LAMP I run but they tend to be no more than murder mysteries with a few slim websites and real life role playing thrown in. The form needs a place where it is easy to create complex story structures and also have the real time element. So…enough preamble (yes I am typing this live into the wordpress box by the way!!) – even more worrying…

THEMES
Second Life has all the raw ingredients for great Alternate Reality Game production and execution. FIRSTLY, though the basis on which all of this depends is that “the virtual space is regarded as being complete and of itself a self contained reality AND all participants have a shared perception of the space” – (note: participants who are agreeing to share a common narrative and not ALL residents yet). In other words, in this case, Second Life IS the world for the participants and everything that happens within it has no references (or shouldnt have) to the real world – the one your sat in now. This may be the paradox to some who would say that ARG’s by definition may contain a virtual game, not so here, this IS the world. So a fourth wall has to be created, the role playing by the characters in a piece has to be kept within the world, no references to the first world and so on. The challenge is getting everyone on the same song sheet – old SLifers have a completely different take on the world than newbies of course – and everything in between. More later. The story structure of the ARG must be closely aligned to the world of Second Life – because the narrative is suggesting something parallel or ‘alternate’ to the world, it should not also become too fantasy (more later). Because then we step into World of Warcraft, or Everquest territory – and that would be easy to do. No the story world here needs to play off the everyday world of Second Life (OK those who have not spent time here may think I have lost it or am reading way too much into, what many call a computer game…).

No Second Life is a very immersive and time consuming experience – it is both worringly addictive yet extends in the most compelling way ones “dreams & desires” – but I digress yet again. Themes that would be easy inside SL include conspiracies around property given the relative high cost of land. Others around the many locations and buildings in terms of history, and previous events that may have happened there. Much could be built into corporate take over, the large shopping malls and potential mafiosa regimes. There are many ‘real life’ characters inside SL(due to the fact that they are ‘in’ the world most days) that could be used as something to generate myth – these ‘regulars’ do in fact constantly role play as well so they could be used. Also as many activities such as building, lectures, dances, concerts etc take place – anything can be built to that. Another kind of theme which a few of us have been improvising around in public spaces already would be the bizarre concepts around a ‘revolution against the overlords that run Second Life’. Bear with me on this one – a kind of phythonesque, satirical, nonsense stab at the ‘system’ on which SL runs. Can the inmates take over the asylum, biting the hands that feed it, Neo escapes the matrix and so on. There are many themes to explore as the backbone of an ARG inside Second Life that do not need to resort to fantasy.

TOOLS OF THE TRADE

Second life has so many potential tools that designers of ARG’s inside it can draw on. It affords many things that are very difficult or nigh on impossible in the physical world, yet in SL are taken as granted. Here is a non-exhaustive list that from my experience so far could be used as virtual reality, alternate reality game tools.

Easy and always on communication: IM and chat is ubiquitous inside SL. So talking to characters in front of you and in parallel IM’ing distant ones is VERY easy. Also you can deliver out of band, in other words leave messages for others with guarenteed delivery – now think sms or even email in the real ‘global world and the multiple carrier, spam nightmare. This is where global players can instantaneously communitcate in-game.

Location, location, location: To get to anyplace in Second Life one simply teleports. This means the whole 200 000 people world can be readily explored and therefore distributed widely and not tied to a specific location. That is not to say one location could act as base with dense areas of gameplay.

Inter character exchanges: This is where any character can pass you objects, directions, teleportation coordinates, animations, notecards – the list goes on. A tool such as this really means clue discovery and passing stories between players is a breeze.

Grouping: To create teams inside SL is also very easy, and new members can be added on the fly. Members of your group can be tracked across the built in maps.

Orientation: SL has many ways to find things, people and know where you are. The built in search engine can point you at any person, event, place, object inside the world. So placing clues and red herrings etc: is also very easy. The mapping is incredible and zooming, scrolling across the many thousands of buildings combined with instantaneous teleporting on a double click means you can get anywhere from anywhere.

Scripting: It is incredibly easy to put script into objects in SL. I used some pre-compiled code last night and modified it to build a greeting object (one that talks back based on pre-set text input) AND an answer machine AND something that sends you notecards AND even got into scripting motion – so things can move to locations on input or follow characters. So bespoke elements can be quickly added into the mix.

Animation: Not an obvious element of the SL tool set to use, but well animated characters who are real life (inside Second Life) add to the sense of reality I think. Even though the character may look like Brad Pitt (just realised one of mine does a bit!) or some kind of cat woman, if the movements are fluid, then the world is all the more usuable and once immersed doesnt lead to sense of disbelief. True immersion should afford that. So get good skins (the texture around your avatar) and override (basic) animations using an AO (animation overridere) for your characters.

Identity: This is a great area to explore in ARG’s as characters avatars can change at the drop of a hat. In otherwords a surfer dude can change into an office worker in a split second in front of you (choose a rather ‘normal example’ for brevity!). But what that means is that one can really play on the ‘no one is who they seem’ mentality here. Great for conspiracy and diversionary tactics…

Virtual Cross-Media: SL allows movies and sound to be streamed via the web into the world onto screens and through objects – opening all sorts of possibilities. Also objects can contain sound bytes and have logic – so entering the right code into an object could produce a video on a large screen to appear, or a clue to be automatically sent to your inventory (the place where all your ‘stuff’ is held). There are virtual working radios, tv, phones (including ones that use the real world participants voice played through the character), obviously print, posters and so on. All the things a puppet-master (those who make traditional ARGs) would need
Breaking the fourth wall: I would not do this myself but you can link to web pages – which boot an external browser – but dont go there.

There are many other tools believe it or not that I may add later when they become apparent…

RECRUITMENT

Finally one of the drawbacks of Second Life is that bespoke elements, objects and clues can only be placed on parcels (land) that the owner has allowed or placed there themselves. So in a distributed virtual alternate reality game (now that is a mouthful!) you will need a few recruits to both role play and allow physical clues or evidence to be pre-set. This should be an easy task as networks of like minded machinima, social design and others pushing the gaming element are easy to find inside SL, to communicate with and offer to help them in their pursuits – to reciprocate. Or as many do you can pay a small fee.

DESIGN

Without going too mcuh into the design process of a social game within a game-like environment primarily because I have things to do in real life now! The design of the game here should follow simple rules – test, do some test runs on virtual strangers to make sure they get some of the directional elements. Make sure that the real players have enough knowledge of the mechanics of the world (how to use it) so they are not locked out because they cannot work out how to teleport (as a simple example). Cover your backs – if a clue becomes to difficult to decipher make sure you have an alternate way for them to get to it, a character prod and so on. Then the design of the ARGamePlay – whether everyone has to get all clues OR some are given only to certain teams who have to work together OR more usefully a mix of both of those make sure the timing is carefully worked out. If some things are easier than others then you will have teams losing interest once they have done their bit, if things are too hard, they may give up. But these sorts of techniques are discussed elsewhere by far more capable people – this post is about moving the ARG into the virtual space both for easy of production and to use some create tool sets built in already. I/we will be creating a bunch of VARG’s (virtual alternate reality games) at AFTRS and LAMP and will keep you posted on how it goes which should dovetail with the machinima we are starting to play with. One of the real problems I can see (which many of you would have already spotted) is that the ‘way of life’, the grammar of existance inside Second Life takes a few days or weeks to grasp – and then the control mechanics too. To newcomers it is a confusing world and orientation is quite steep. So for an ARG to work well all participants must be fully ‘immersed’ and understand the shared space and so called SL normality – whatever that is. There are enough shared ground rules though for it to work in my opinion if the participant is given a week or so to be acclimatized.

As a post script: The point of this post as I suggested at the beginning is not just to talk about one kind of service creation inside a virtual space but to point out that once all parties are agreed that the ‘virtual world’ becomes THE world and nothing else exists outside it, many, many things become possible. Especially as I have been seeing already – the extention into things that are totally new and not representing our first life in anyway shape of form. But will leave that to another day. I am becoming more and more resistant to talking about the real world inside the immersive space as it truly inhibits real creativity – so if you see me in there at anytime, please be yourself

Posted by Gary Hayes (Hazlitt) © 2006

Append: Looks like all great ideas come at once all over the world! Someone else with ‘ARG inside Second Life’ motivation no less than a day after this post – and who nicely refers back here. Cool – strength in numbers!